"blessed Are You Who Trust In Jesus"

“Blessed are You who Trust in Jesus”

Matthew 5:1-12

This is the beginning of, arguably, Jesus’ most famous sermon.

It begins in Matthew Chapter 5 and goes all the way to the end of Matthew Chapter 7 where it ends with: “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching…”

It’s often been debated as to whether Jesus was just speaking to a small group of insiders or to a multitude.

And the reason is that in Chapter 5:1-2 it says, “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.”

I’d imagine Jesus taught His small band of early disciples on a hillside, in the middle of great crowds of people.

And more and more folks stopped to listen in because what He was saying, He was saying with such authority.

And what He was saying held such truth.

And, perhaps, each person felt as if Jesus were speaking right to them.

And in a real sense, He was.

And this sermon continues to preach to us—right here and right now—some 2,000 years after Jesus first spoke it.

Jesus’ disciples were mere mortals, like you and I.

They didn’t have much money to speak of.

They had dealt with all kinds of difficulty in their short lives.

Many had watched children, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers die from disease and other things.

They didn’t particularly feel powerful in any real way.

They didn’t hold important jobs.

Their country was occupied by an opposing force.

They couldn’t control much of what happened to them.

Many of them were hungry, thirsty, beaten down and downcast.

And Jesus looked at them and said: “Blessed are you.”

Sort of shocking wouldn’t you think?

Blessed?

What’s so blessed about being “poor in spirit?”

What’s so blessed about mourning over the loss of a loved one, or just mourning over your lot in life?

And blessed are the meek?

Shouldn’t it be blessed are the strong?

Imagine Jesus staring out at these hungry, sad, broken, dirty-faced folks and proclaiming that they are “blessed!”

But then, imagine yourself, leading a devotion in a room filled with homeless children or children who come from homes where they are abused, neglected, malnourished.

Imagine looking into the eyes of those desperate kids, and in them you see human beings who are starving for love.

And then, imagine knowing something that they don’t yet know.

Imagine knowing that they are loved—beyond measure…

…perhaps not by their biological parents, not by the government or their foster parents, or their uncles or peers…

…but loved beyond measure by the One Who matters most—God.

Imagine looking at them through the eyes of Christ.

And seeing just how loved they are.

What are you going to say to them?

(Pause)

It’s been said that Jesus began His sermon to “a bunch of nobodies by blessing them.”

And what do you suppose that blessing did for them?

Was it the first time anyone had ever called them blessed?

Was it a shock for them to hear it spoken to them?

I’d imagine it was.

I’d also imagine it caused them to want to hear more from this new Preacher.

I’d imagine it lit a spark of hope in their otherwise dreary lives…perhaps the first spark of hope they had ever experienced…

…and it really does only take a spark to get a fire going and soon, soon…

…we find our worldview changing.

We love because we are first loved.

And love is what changes us from those who have little self-confidence, little self-worth, little reason to live into people filled with purpose, hope and a radical love for life, God and other people.

I’ve been there.

I’ve experienced this for myself.

How about you?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

We don’t have to read too far in the Gospels to come upon all kinds of the world’s misfits who were radically changed by the blessing of Christ.

I can’t help but think of the Samaritan woman that Jesus met at Jacob’s well as she was fetching water.

She was the outcast of outcasts among her people.

And in order to avoid the bullying and angry sneers from the other women in the town who did not approve of her lifestyle…of her past, she went to the well, by herself in the heat of the day.

That is where she met Jesus—the first one to love her and treat her like a human being.

By the end of their conversation, the woman had dropped her water jar and run back to the town in order to tell the others that she had found the Messiah.